My Marrakesh

Morocco: Let the building begin!

Have you ever wondered how exactly you would go about building 10,000 square feet spread over one house and two guest houses in Morocco?  You've seen our house design (in the Morocco Ta Da post below) and I can assure you that the two guest houses are also complex designs (each with a Moroccan dome).  But with a coveted Marrakech building permit in our hot little hands, the time had come for the building to begin! 

Now I admit, we were in better shape than some since Chris was an architect.  (Thank goodness I hadn't married that handsome astronomer or that charming door-to-door vacuum salesman…)  But as useful as his profession was at a time like this, it also posed some constraints.  With a professional eye, he would look at the work of some Moroccan builders and pronounce it shoddy.  Other builders were deemed completely unaware of twentieth century safety codes.  Still others were accused (quietly) of using poor quality materials.  And so it went.  I pleaded with him:  “Is this all really necessary?  We are not building the Petronus Tower.”  To which he responded:  “Would you prefer the leaning tower of Pisa?”  As far as he was concerned, this was going to our home and lodging for our guests, and as Little Red Riding Hood had surmised, it needed to be just right.  Anything that smacked even mildly of mediocrity was to be banished from the kingdom - forever. 

So after much to-ing and fro-ing, yet another enormous check was written (gulp and double gulp).  And we had ourselves a Marrakech contractor.  Rather than hire a builder to do everything, Chris decided to contract a company only for the labor.  That way he could purchase all the materials himself to ensure the very highest quality that we could afford; he was convinced that it was in the quality of materials that the builders skimped, thereby ensuring a higher profit. 

And so that’s how we have come to have 20 Moroccan workers toiling away on our land, pouring concrete and setting pipe.  Not to mention the other four workers that we have hired to build a wall around our 8.5 acres of land and olive grove  My husband leaves at the crack of dawn in his work boots and returns at night trailing in gravel.  He then promptly collapses into bed in a dusty heap of big lug. 

This all leads me to ask myself one question – and one question alone -- do we know really what we are getting ourselves into?  Oh my….

Morocco: The importance of kissing bottom

Days had come and gone and we were STILL waiting for the building permits for our land in Morocco.  How could that be?  The city would send back our plans asking us to make a little correction here and there that I swear were already incorporated into the plans.  Something, yes something, was not adding up.  It appeared that we had to work a little harder….  It appeared that a little back scratching, a little groveling, a little pleading were in order.  It appeared that flattery of the most shameless, shameless kind was required.   Maybe something along the lines of: Oh Thee, distributor of the Marrakech building permits, brave and powerful one, hallowed be thy name…..Or perhaps it needed to be a little more like this:  Oh you handsome, handsome Marrakech Building Permit Distributor.  Do you know that you look just like Omar Sharif?  I bet you people tell you that all the time, don’t they? (eye lashes batting)  I can tell you, it definitely was not like this: Mr. Marrakech Building Permit Distributor, good morning Sir.  We are asking for our building permit. We have fulfilled all the requirements and the deadline has passed.  We are asking you to do your job, just as we have done our job.  So if you wouldn’t mind stamping right here and signing right here, we will be on our way.  Because you see, we had tried that last one and it had resulted in a blank stare combined with absolutely zippo action.

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No, no, no.  We had to be much more cunning than that.  Intermediaries needed to be hired and compliments needed to fly in every which way. We had to become the human embodiment of the adjective saccharine. So yes, dear friends, I confess -- that is exactly what we did.  And guess what happened after we implemented this little strategy of ours?  Well whaddya know, our Moroccan building permit arrived on our front doorstep.  Gee willikers. 

*

It appeared we were ready to start building. 

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(But I tell you, if I see Mr. Marrakesh Building Permit Distributor one night with his car broken down, on a highway in the Atlas Mountains in the middle of nowhere, in the pouring rain, looking woebegone and drenched to the skin….I am putting my foot down hard on the gas pedal and speeding right by him, without a moment’s hesitation….And if you listen closely, you might even here me sing:  ooh, ooh, witchy wo-man, see how high she fly-eye-eyes…. ooh, ooh, witchy woman, she’s got the moon in her eye-eye-eye-EYES…..)

Morocco: and now getting to the house design

Okay, we needed to submit for the Marrakech building permits.  But to do so, we needed to have a design, we needed to have a plan, we needed to have our dream house and dream guest house down on paper.  Ahem, it looked like we had our work cut out for us.

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We had walked the land and walked it again.  The question was how could we maximize these 8.5 acres of land and olive grove to get what we wanted?  We started out with some concepts:  indoor/outdoor living, privacy, light, eco-friendliness.  We wanted something that was Moroccan in style but Western in its safety codes, its bathrooms and its kitchens.  We wanted a place where children could bike and play, people could swim and take runs, and adults could recuperate from the stresses of work and the nightly television news.  We wanted a place that would inspire you to take strolls in the mornings through the olive trees, with benches so you could stop and admire the mountains in Winter.  We wanted a place that made you want to gaze at your husband or wife in that special way, even after all these years. We wanted something up market, something stylish, and something exclusive.  We wanted spacious rooms, private terraces, and multiple living experiences.  You see, we wanted it all.  And we also wanted not to go broke in the process.  We had a mortgage, we had our savings, and we had my parents’ contributions.  But we didn’t have more than that.  We would have to find a way.

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We rolled up our sleeves and got to work. Or really, my trusty architect husband, Chris, got to work. After spending 20 years designing other people’s homes, it was finally time for him to design his own.  Sketches on paper on every surface in the house, trash cans filled with crumpled vellum overlays, AutoCad computer manipulation until the wee hours of the morning.  It was exhausting, it was exciting, it was nerve-racking, it was ours.  Finally, finally, it seemed we had our design.  So what was the design you ask?  I was just getting to that part…….

To build or not to build, that is the question....

Actually, that wasn't the question.  We were definitely going to build.  The question was really, are we going to renovate?  Or start from scratch? 

"It's no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another."

~President George W. Bush

Marrakesh is known for its beautiful, crumbling riads (courtyard houses) in the old city, known as the medina.  Intricate tile work, painted ceilings, and a feeling that nothing has changed for centuries.  When we first moved to Morocco, we were enchanted by them.  We still are.  But now only to spend a week, or a weekend or a day --  not a year, or five years...or forever. 

For as exquisite as they are, and as much renovation as you do, homes in the old city seem in a permanent state of disrepair - no electrical grounding, constant battles with mold, ceilings dropping plaster.  Even the swankiest guest houses looked a teensy bit tattered.  Not to mention that there would be no possibility of parking a car, and at least a twenty minute walk to get home every night (try doing that after a martini or two). 

We came to the conclusion that a lifestyle that was a bit more serene outside of the old city of Marrakesh was what was called for.  We wanted some space to stretch out our legs and a big garden for ambling about with our children and our friends.  We also wanted a view of the snow- capped Atlas mountains. 

We decided to build - to start from scratch.  The undecideds had decided.